"Cardiologist John Forsyth moved to the Rogue Valley to practice medicine in 1970. When he retired in 2004, he continued to speak about the most uncomfortable of subjects: death and dying.

In 2010, Forsyth helped create Choosing Options, Honoring Options (COHO) to educate about end-of-life preferences. He wants every person facing the final stages of life "to have the opportunity to do so with the greatest possible dignity and comfort."

Today, he will be giving a free lecture through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute on advance health directives and how to start family-based conversations about end-of-life care options.

In 1998, he was named Physician Citizen of the Year by the Oregon Medical Association and he has been a longtime volunteer at the Community Health Center, a clinic serving low-income patients.

He grew up in Illinois where he learned to care for people who are sick and poor by his mother, who was a nurse, and his father, who served meals to those in need during the Great Depression.

Forsyth earned undergraduate degrees in English and philosophy at the University of Illinois. After graduating from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, he interned and studied at the University of Washington medical school in Seattle.